


Idle Threats

by Greenninjagal



Series: Friends on the Other Side (Your Side) [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, Burns, Did I just make a one shot so Dee could punch a guy?, I hate OCs but here we are, Its background LAMP but like...Virgil is a no show for now, M/M, Student!Dee, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Teacher!Logan, past car crash, sorry - Freeform, you betcha!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 20:03:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19158007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenninjagal/pseuds/Greenninjagal
Summary: Vice Principal Joan taps their fingers on their side of the desk. If Dee shifts a little he can see the little blue unfolded note that the teacher had sent him with, and although he doesn’t know what it says, Dee knows its probably bad.Like “Student Ekans interrupted class with a threat against unarmed peer and then acted upon said threat. Suggested course of action is immediate expulsion” bad.***Aka no one has ever stood up for Dee so he decided to do it himself, in front of the class, in front of the brand new substitute teacher. And he almost regrets it.





	Idle Threats

Dante Ethan Ekans hates every single teacher in his school. Three years into his high school career and he had come across every single teacher— _every single one of them_ —and he hated them all. He had sat through every lecture, done every assignment, battled in every single class discussion. He had done everything the school system had asked him to do.

And he is still staring at a low D average in all his classes.

It should have been impossible: the grading system was set up so that as long as students just _showed up_ they were receiving a C grade.

And well, Dante had always been proving the impossible, possible. He had survived his own birth, survived the car crash that killed his father, and survived the worst of his mother’s psychotic tantrums. He had dragged himself to school with bruises on his wrists and broken fingers wrapped messily in old bandages that made his handwriting into an atrocious disgrace just so that he could at least get an education, get a chance at a scholarship, get a chance to leave town.

And he is in his third year of high school, the year most colleges start to look at prospective students, and he is getting a low D average and he couldn’t do a single thing about it.

It’s like the entire teaching staff had unanimously decided “hey, you know that kid whose face is all messed up with the burn marks from the car crash at age six? Let’s just ruin his entire life by grading him unnecessarily harder than everyone else in the school, turning a blind eye to when the other students mess with him, and loudly announcing how he needs to do better on his essays if he wants to get better grades in front of the whole class.”

Dante—and fuck if he hated that name. _No one_ was called Dante anymore—had done everything he could to get his grades up. He studied twice as hard and twice as long as everyone else. He had swallowed his pride and asked the teachers for help (and been told to pay more attention in class) and for extra credit (and been denied). He had tried to argue grades and been sent to the Detention room for vulgar language and an attempted assault on a teacher (which was a blatant lie).

Not to mention that one asshole of a teacher, Mr. Walker, who had told him that not only was make up for females, but his use of cosmetics was an unacceptable cry for attention. Dante then had to stand there in front of the class with his cheeks burning red and his peers snickering as he told the teacher that he wasn’t wearing any make up, and that the burns on his face were the real deal, and that he couldn’t wash it off even if he wanted to.

So Dante Ethan Ekans—Dee for short; Dee was what his friends would call him, if he had any—has no hard feelings when he heard that Mr. Walker had been in a bad car accident and would not be back for the rest of the school year. What a _complete_ shame that would be. How would they _ever_ move on?

Apparently, there’s a substitute coming, one of those long-term ones that only ever dropped by for times of emergency. Dee had overheard the head of nutrition (a sweet, mother-like man that all the lunch ladies adore named Patton Hart) and school resource officer (who Dee doesn’t know the name of and kept far enough away from. He doesn’t need to be any closer to any law enforcers than he already was) talking about the teacher: about how strict he was, about how the kids had no clue what was coming, about how Mr. Hart should redesign the menu with the majority of the student’s favorites because this week was going to be rough with a capital R. They both had laughed after that, and Patton had caught sight of Dee and asked him if he needed anything in the kindest tone Dee had ever heard.

(He had run after that, had run as fast as he could without making it seem like he was running away. The last thing he needs is anymore people to look at him with pity, with cruelty, with smug better-than-you expressions that appeared the second Dee dared act vulnerable. The last thing he needs is to open his mouth and tell the truth.)

Dee isn’t expecting anything amazing to come out of the substitute teacher. He expects it to be another beanpole old lady who snaps anytime someone made a noise and confiscates phones on whim and assigns them all worksheets that were to be done and handed in by the end of the class period, no exceptions.

He’s usually one of the first into the science room because the class he has before it is Math which just down the hall, but he’s barely out of the room when Mrs. Johnston’s shrill voice slices through the student chatter.

 “Ekans!” She screeches, “Ekans! A moment!”

It’s not a moment. It’s _never_ just a moment with her. The bell rings and the halls empty and Dee stands in front of the math teacher for another three minutes listening to her tell him that he’s been doing his math the wrong way and if he doesn’t start doing it the way she taught in class she’s going to have to dock him more points (like there’s more to dock him in the first place), regardless of the fact he doesn’t understand the way she’s been teaching and his way is actually based on how a college professor explained it on the YouTube series he looked up for help.

He can see into her classroom, the one that’s filled with obnoxious freshman who are lounging around while they wait for their teacher to be done berating Dee. He can see the way they all point and snicker and make fun of the half of his face he can’t do anything about.

“And now you’ve made me waste time for my next class, Mr. Ekans.” Mrs. Johnston says, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry,” Dee says robotically, and his hands tighten around the strap of his backpack. “It won’t happen again, Ma’am.”

But it’s a lie, because it always happens again.

But it’s a lie, because he’s not really sorry at all.

Because she might have missed the first few minutes of class, but she controlled the rate the students learned. Dee felt his own nails tear into his palm as he opened the door to the classroom where the new substitute was-- the one who’s voice was already droning on about what they were learning, already through the roll call, already letting the whole class know he was not going to tolerate any monkey business at all.

Dee glances at the teacher, who in turn does not break his lecture, but nods to him and to one of the several empty desks in the room. He’s young, nerdy looking, but Dee can’t think of anyone he knows who would have the guts to say it to the man’s face. He had a cold look about him, like he didn’t know how to smile and wasn’t in the mood to learn.

Dee throws himself into the closest empty chair, keeping his head down and tries not to make too much noise when he picks through his backpack for his notebook for the science class.

He’s so focused on not disrupting the teacher, not causing anymore eyes to fall on him, not helping the already terrible opinion the man has of him, that he wasn’t even paying attention to who he was sitting next to until it’s far too late to change seats.

And he finds out when sees another body drape over the desk to his left out of the corner of his eye and Dee freezes on the spot. He’s not hearing a single thing the new teacher says, not hearing whatever he’s mentioning about the quick technical drawing he has on the board, and definitely not hearing the notes he should be taking down. His tongue grates against his teeth as Kyle slides his chair an inch his direction with a weasel-ish expression on his face.

 “Hey, Ekans,” Kyle murmurs just loud enough for Dee to hear.

Dee refuses to look at him, but it’s not like he’s seeing anything in front of him either. His fingers squeeze his pencil, and the soles of his feet rest firmly on the ground, like it can keep him from moving at all.

“Ekans,” Kyle says again louder, but not enough to stop the teacher. “The boys and I took some notes for you.”

They aren’t notes. Dee can see the header so neatly written on the top of the paper, so innocently telling him it’s a list of reasons no one likes him and what to do about it (and worse). It’s not original, its not new, and Dee stubbornly refuses to give him the satisfaction of taking it.

Dee can hear the rest of his friends, the idiots, the dicks, and those two girls who never had anything nice to say, snickering behind them and further left. He can see a motion that looks like one of them nudging each other, and he feels the familiar kick of someone’s foot against his chair.

He wants to say he’s used to it.

He doesn’t think lying to himself is healthy.

Lying to everyone else? Yeah, sure, he’s been doing that since middle school. He’s drowned in his fake apologies for things that weren’t his fault and his torn himself apart to appease people who need to feel like they’re better than others just to keep his own mind sane.

Honestly, he’s a little sick of it—all of it. He didn’t ask for his face to be the discolored mess that it was, didn’t ask for his mother to sometimes lose her mind, didn’t ask for everyone around him to be assholes. He remembers, vaguely, the doctor who had treated his burns (one of them?). At six years old, he can’t even put a face or a name to the form, but he can still hear the voice in the back of his mind telling him he’s lucky, so very lucky.

He could have lost an eye. His arm. His life.

Dee hasn’t felt lucky since then.

The foot kicks his chair again, Dee jerks. Someone laughs. The teacher says something about a test with a pointed clip to his tone. They settle down long enough that the teacher turns away and rambles on about the schedule he’s going to keep them on, blah, blah, blah.

Kyle leans over again. “Ekans—”

“Shut up,” Dee hisses. He regrets it a second later. Because there was a metaphorical door there and Dee had just flung it open and allowed Kyle to walk on in.

“Damn Ekans,” Kyle snickers, “You don’t have to be such a little bitch about it. Does your brother know your such a little bitch?”

Dee’s hand tightens on his pencil.

“Maybe we should tell him,” Kyle muses.  Dee doesn’t have to look to know the expression on the other’s face. “He goes to Mind Elementary, right? Just down the road?”

Dee counts backwards from Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven.

 “It would be super easy just to sit down and have a chat with him. I wonder if he knows how big of a freak his brother is? I bet he’s too stupid to—”

Dee does not make it to six.

“If you so much as look at my brother, I’ll put you in the goddamn hospital,” Dee says.

The room seems to breathe for a second. Dee glares at Kyle and his stupidly pleased weasel face and beady green eyes that look like forest moss eating the carcass of some animal. The room seems to breathe for a second and Dee realizes with a fiery anger it was because no one was speaking.

The teacher had stopped. Which meant that everyone’s attention is on him.

“Mr. Ekans,” The substitute says a hand reaching up to adjust his glasses, and Dee flinches. “Is there something you would like to add to my lecture?”

It wasn’t even fifteen minutes into the class, and the man already knew his name. Kyle grins sharply, smugly. Two of his friends do an underhand five in the seats behind them. Dee thinks he hates everyone in the room at that very moment.

“No,” Dee says, through gritted teeth, “sir.”

The teacher hums. “Interesting, could that be because Mr. Phillips was providing an ample distraction in the middle of my class time?”

That was the moment that Dee realizes he had gone to school with Kyle for three years and had never heard his last name before.

After all, Kyle was every teacher’s favorite. If they didn’t know him from his numerous club activities (drama, art, debate, every honor club you could think of), he often brought them presents on the first day of class and was invited over for dinner every Saturday evening within the first week of class. No one addressed him by his last name.

The substitute teacher didn’t look pleased to be the first. Neither did Kyle.

And frankly, neither did Dee. (Because it wasn’t like it would last. It wasn’t like by tomorrow all of Kyle’s misdeeds would be forgotten and this teacher--this temporary teacher--wouldn’t be wrapped around Kyle’s finger like all the others.) Dee’s stomach clenched at the thought, a bit of envy, jealousy, anger clawing up his throat and making the burns from so long ago itch.

“Well?” The teacher says—and no, Dee checked, he had not written his name on the board. “Mr. Phillips?”

“I was just offering him the notes.” Kyle says, “He came in late. I was trying to be a help and he threatened me!” He looks at his friends who all nod earnestly like Kyle isn’t lying through the skin of his teeth.

“Curious how I do not believe that,” The teacher counters. “This is my classroom, Mr. Phillips. If I thought Mr. Ekans needed notes, I would have provided them to him. Additionally, your actions have caused more harm than good as I am now wasting more of this class’s time, and seeing how this is the last class of the day, I only have your attentions for approximately an hour and fifteen minutes.” He stops for a moment, his eyes darting between Dee and Kyle in a way that Dee does not like.

“Perhaps this is for the best.” He says suddenly, “It would do well to get this out of the way now. Both of you, up here.”

Dee freezes.

Kyle hisses under his breath and heaves himself out of the chair with false gusto. He makes a gesture to his friends that carries a round of giggling up to the front of the room.

“Mr. Ekans,” The teacher says. “That means you, too.”

In no way shape or form is Dee at fault here. He knows he’s not. Kyle and his friends have been picking on him for years and getting away with it and leaving charcoal rocks in Dee’s stomach from every encounter. Standing up feels a lot like striking a match and the entire trek up to the front of the room feels like lowering it to the rocks.

Dee’s face is already burning by the time he side by side with Kyle again. He stares stiffly at the whiteboard, glaring at a smudge of black marker from the last class.

“I am not your normal teacher,” The substitute says. “A lot of the things that were condoned in his class will not be in mine. You will not talk when I talk. You will not be on your phones unless I tell you to. You will not pass notes. You will not make idle threats—”

Dee isn’t sure what comes over him, but that charcoal fire in his stomach explodes outward and engulfs his entire body. For a split second everything turns red, every noise of all the twenty-two other students in the class fades to nothingness, and Dee turns sharply to the side.

Maybe its because Dee had a little bit of hope buries somewhere deep in his mind. Maybe its because he knew that teachers weren’t supposed to pick sides or hold prejudices. Maybe its because Dee spent a whole ten years being “lucky” enough that he survived everything thrown his way just to let another teacher turn a blind eye to the students’ interactions.

Maybe its because Dee was just so very tired of the smug look on Kyle’s face.

His fist connects before anyone realizes he even moved. Kyle yells, and he goes crashing to the floor. Dee’s knuckles pulsate with pain, and he pretty sure he tore the skin off on when it scraped Kyles stupid teeth. Several kids scream.

Dee looks back at the teacher, meeting his somewhat surprised gaze with his own angry one.

“There,” Dee spits, “It’s not an “idle” threat anymore.”

So he finds himself sitting in the front office hands jammed in his pockets and shoulders up to his ears. Part of him wonders if he can fold into himself until nothing exists. The secretary running the phone and letting parents in to pick up their kids, keeps side eyeing him, as if he’s a circus attraction she can’t quite believe is real.

Dee’s head is still ringing with the teachers voice telling him to take the quickly scribbled note and go to the Vice Principal’s office, but the edges of his adrenaline and his anger keep him from feeling the paper cut and the bruising on his knuckles that surely was coming.

He tries to convince himself he’s sorry for doing it, but if Vice Principal Joan tells him to apologize to Kyle in person Dee might have to take a short walk off the roof.

It had felt…good. It had felt great. It had felt a lot like a mistake too.

There was no way he was getting out of this one, no empty promises to do better could make up for assaulting another student. Not to mention that substitute teacher most definitely hated him now, and rightfully was about to join ranks with ever other teacher in the school.

VP Joan was going to suspend him, and then they’ll call Dee’s mother, and then Dee was never going to get into college, and he was never going to leave this town, and he was never going to overcome the scarring on his face that he had been _so damn_ _lucky_ to survive in the first place.

“Dante Ekans,” A voice calls from the hall of offices where all the staff had desks. Dee only recognizes VP Joan because of their face in the school newsletter and sometimes on the papers. They did a lot of fundraisers like kissing a pig if the students raised “X” amount of money, or one dollar to buy a strip of duct tape to tape them to the wall.

Dee goes with them into their office. It feels cluttered, but there is enough space for Dee to sit down and VP Joan to look stressed. Papers, mugs, several action figures Dee vaguely recognizes rest on the desk. There were awards on the walls and teaching certificates along with superhero posters Dee thinks probably aren’t the most professional until he sees it was signed by the cast of the movies.

“So,” The VP says, “Want to tell me what happened?”

The answer is no, Dee does not want to tell them what happened. Because even when Dee tells the truth, even when he lays down his words barren in front of the judges, even when he cries or yells or shows any validating emotion, his scarred face makes him appear less trustworthy. It happened before where Kyle said what he wanted and the teachers decided that must have been what happened and that Dee had lied and made everything up in yet another desperate cry for attention.

So, no, Dee doesn’t want to tell the VP what happened, because he’s so sick of being turned into the bad guy when he’s not. (Okay maybe punching the guy was a bad example here. Maybe Dee just wants to keep himself from digging a bigger grave with this one).

Dee stares at the wood grain in the VP’s desk and lets the silence hold out. It’s comforting in a way.

VP Joan taps their fingers on their side of the desk. If Dee shifts a little he can see the little blue unfolded note that the teacher had sent him with, and although he doesn’t know what it says, Dee knows its probably bad.

Like _“Student Ekans interrupted class with a threat against unarmed peer and then acted upon said threat. Suggested course of action is immediate expulsion”_ bad. Or something worse.

“Mr. Ekans,” VP Joan says, followed by a sigh, “Fuck this shit.”

Dee blinks at the sudden language—language he’s pretty sure is not allowed in the school. Most of his teachers get after him for that (especially the ones who can’t get him with anything else. His last English teacher was a fan of cutting him off mid book discussion whenever he used a swear, until Dee just began to hold his tongue completely.)

“Look, I don’t know what you did that Logan needed you out of the classroom.” VP Joan says, “And I don’t really have any work that a student can do, uh, legally. Why don’t you go see if Patton—uh Mr. Hart to you—needs any help.”

Dee stills, “What?”

VP Joan holds up the blue paper, and the black scrawl that reads _“Please entertain Mr. Ekans for the rest of the block”_ makes Dee’s eyes cross slightly.

“I’m not…in trouble?” Dee says. It sounds like a dream, like saying the words out loud will make the reality crack and fall apart.

“Should you be?” VP Joan asks, “Don’t answer that. Dr. Ackroyd and I go way back, but I’m still surprised he agreed to fill in here for the rest of the year. We need a competent science teacher, so I’ll turn my head to whatever complex puzzle he’s solving.”

Dee doesn’t understand what that means. He really doesn’t care either.

“Don’t forget your bag,” VP Joan says as they usher Dee out of the office and towards the cafeteria where Patton Hart might be found. “I’m sure I’ll see more of you, Mr. Ekans, but until then have a good day.”

It’s ridiculous, Dee thinks, like its part of a dream. Maybe it is? Maybe Dee punched Kyle and Kyle hit him back and he hit his head on the white board marker tray and now he’s hallucinating.

But he doesn’t think hallucinations were this real: he can hear the sound of each teacher teaching, laughter from some of the rooms, and the muttered conversation between two teachers who have a free period this block and don’t spare him a glance. He can hear the sound of the tape ripping as a couple of students hang posters on the walls for Cheerleading tryouts, can feel the sturdiness of the tile floor under his feet as he tries to catch the reflection of the artificial lights on the polish, can smell the lemon cleaner from the trolley outside the bathrooms that signifies they’re being cleaned at the moment.

He finds Patton Hart sitting at the only table left set up in the cafeteria. He’s laughing leaning forward with a bottle of Windex and a rag at his elbows, but it looks like he’s already cleaned everything that needs to be cleaned. Standing next to him is the resource officer, and Dee still doesn’t know the man’s name. It wasn’t like they talked very often. Still, the man looks smug and happy, and absolutely thrilled that he managed to get a laugh from the nutritionist.

Dee slows his pace, a half step for every real step he could be taking when he realizes that he doesn’t have a clue what he’s supposed to say. At best? Mr. Hart would set him up with some busy work to do, like cleaning lunch trays maybe (where there any of those left?). At worse? He’d demand to know why Dee wasn’t in class, and then drag him to said class and Dee would get to be the middle of a commotion all over again. Perhaps it would be better if he ran for the bathrooms and hid there until the end of the day. Then he’d sneak out with the rest of the students, avoid Kyle, pick up his brother, and make it all the way home before anyone stopped him.

His shoe scuffed the ground when he goes to turn around. His heart jumps to his throat, when both the staff members pause to look at him.

“Hey, kiddo!” Mr. Hart says, “You need something?”

The Resource Officer shifts to put his hands on his belt. Dee tries not to watch too intensely. His mouth dries up again, and he tries figure out what combination of English words isn’t going to ruin this chance to walk free of consequences. He hates that he remembers a time when he wasn’t afraid to talk to people, hates that he has to swallow the lump in his throat and fight the urge to stare at his shoes while his fingers tear at his bag’s straps.

“VP Joan,” Dee says finally, “sent me to you.”

“Me?” Mr. Hart blinks, pointing to himself. “Hmm, that’s not normal. Did they say why?”

Answering the question is a straight forward thing: VP Joan said that he had nothing for Dee to do, so he sent him to Mr. Hart. But Dee also knows that will lead the conversation to why he was sent to VP Joan in the first place and he really doesn’t want to tell anyone else how he managed to dodge the repercussions of decking another kid by some type of miracle and have that change.

The silence holds on a second, two, three, too long. Dee’s head drops to stare at his scuffed up converse (an ugly yellow pair that he had stolen from a GoodWill bin in the outer parking lot of a shopping complex late one night two years ago, which he had worn until they were a dusted brown).

“Kiddo?” Mr. Hart asks

The Resource Officer shifts again, “Wait, I know you!” He raises a hand casually turning back to Mr. Hart, and hopefully missing the way Dee’s shoulders tense. “He’s got Walker for last block.”

Mr. Hart claps his hands and turns back to Dee. His eyes sparkle behind his black framed glasses. “Oh, that means you were in Logan’s class! That’s amazing! He’s a great teacher!”

“Hardly!” The Resource Officer scoffs. “Logan probably scared them all out of their minds! He’s the worst!”

“Roman!” Mr. Hart hits him on the arm, “You take that back! Logan is the sweetest teacher this school is ever going to see!”

“Of course, you’d say that, Pat!” The Resource Officer- Roman?- says, “You never had to be tutored by him!” For a man who could probably bench press three “Logan’s”, Dee thought it was a little weird how he shuddered unpleasantly. Although that was not as weird as trying to make sense of what the two adults were talking about.

Honestly he wasn’t sure they were talking about the same person at all: The teacher-- Logan, Dr. Ackroyd (that’s was VP Joan had said right?)-- was stern and stiff and, sure, a little scary, but then again Dee didn’t exactly have stellar experiences with any other adult either. Still he couldn’t see what about him was “the sweetest teacher in this school”.

And the fact that Dee had been in his class for about ten minutes before he was sent right back out. He still wasn’t convinced the teacher wasn’t planning some big, huge, insurmountable class project to give to Dee as a punishment for punching such a nice kid like Kyle.

Mr. Hart stood up from his seat looking directly at Dee, “Come sit down, kiddo! Are you hungry? There’s some left ice cream sandwiches from lunch this week that I’m going to need to throw out before the weekend.”

Dee very much doesn’t know what to do. He’s not sure he nods, but Mr. Hart disappears into the cafeteria kitchen anyway so that Dee and the Resource Officer are left alone. Dee’s fingers ache whenever he moves them, so he takes extra special care to use his non-dominant hand to shrug off his backpack. The burn scars on his forearm and on his shoulder blade work in tandem to make him as uncomfortable as possible.

When he looks up, Resource Officer Roman is staring at him. His brain whirls with something to say, something defensive that will get the adult to keep his comments to himself, and please, _please,_ don’t ask about them. But everything that comes to mind is nasty and ugly and he can’t say it to someone with a taser on their belt.

For a room that could fit upwards three hundred students for lunch, Dee feels trapped and claustrophobic.

“So,” The adult says, “What’s your name?”

“Ekans,” Dee says immediately. He stares down at the table.

“That’s…that’s a terrible name, kid.” The Resource Officer says. “Did your parents pick that one out or--?”

“Dante Ekans,” Dee says sharply, and squeezes his aching fingers tightly because the pressure overrides the pain even if its just for a second.

“Ah! Dante! Like the Poet! Writer of _The Divine Comedy_!”

Dee sinks lower in his seat, “Yep.” The centuries old text of a guy traveling through hell and purgatory and idolizing a guy that had been dead even longer than him. Like he hadn’t heard that one before. It was just another reason to hate his name.

Mr. Hart chooses that moment to come back, bouncing on the balls of his feet, sliding on the freshly polished floor, and those curls of his dancing. Resource Officer Roman immediately forgets all about Dee and Dante’s Inferno and all those things that adults like to think when they saw him. It’s a relief.

Kinda.

Mr. Hart sits down right next to Dee, ignoring his previous seat completely. Dee’s shoulders bunch up to his ears, he’s sure, and the way his mouth dries out is far from expected. But the man just hands him an ice cream sandwich that the cafeteria sold for a dollar during lunch shifts, and Dee takes it.

(He’s had one before, like once. For his birthday last year where he borrowed a single dollar from his mother’s and bought himself one birthday gift. It had been sticky and too sweet and the chocolate had clung to his fingers and he had thrown half of it out, but Dee had loved it. His mother had screamed when she found the money missing, screamed and tore his hair and Dee hadn’t said a word.)

Dee takes his time unwrapping the treat, part of him upset that if Mr. Hart knew _why_ Dee was there, he wouldn’t be giving him a free ice cream sandwich, part of him wishing desperately he could save it and share it with his brother, part of him wanting to shove the entire thing in his mouth because he _deserved it for having put up with this stupid shit for ten years._

“What nothing for me?” Resource Officer Roman asks petulantly.

Mr. Hart smiles at him innocently. “Oh, I have something else for you Ro! It’s just gonna have to wait until after work!”

“Oh yeah?” The Officer smiles, leaning in closer, “And why is that, my dear Pat?”

“Because you can’t eat and work, silly!” Mr. Hart laughs, “What if there’s an emergency? You’d show up all covered in ice cream…!”

Dee takes a large bite of the ice cream sandwich and silently presses “f” to pay respects for the resource officer. The obvious flirting seemed to have absolutely no effect on the man between them, and Dee wasn’t sure if it was the innocent nature of him or if he was trying to let the officer down nicely.

“Ah, my dear Pat,” The Officer says, “Always looking out for me. What would I do without you? Die, surely!”

Mr. Hart laughs, the freckles on his cheeks glow. Dee glances at Resource Officer Roman’s face and is not surprised to see the blatant “smitten” expression. He looks like some anime character seconds before the “heart eyes” started. It’s almost embarrassing. Dee takes another bite of the sandwich.

“Ah, I thought I’d find the three of you here.”

Dee chokes on the bite of the sandwich.

Resource Officer Roman jumps, letting out a yelp that was surprisingly high pitched for a man of his stature. Dee coughs to dislodge a glob of chocolate breading that got stuck  when his throat closed suddenly in a panic. The only one who doesn’t seem a little bit startled by Dr. Logan Ackroyd’s appearance is Patton, who jumps up from his seat and leans forward on the table with literal stars in his eyes.

“Logan!” He cries happily, “It’s been so long!”

“Too Long,” the Substitute teacher agrees, and Dee is uncomfortable with the amount of warmth in his expression—its a stark contrast to how he had looked in the classroom, to how he had looked at Dee. His hand pulses again, his fingers twitching in the pocket he had refused to take it out of since he had sat down.

“Logan,” Resource Officer Roman says, with a sniff of distaste that’s clearly artificial. “I can’t believe they let you back into the country.”

“Roman,” The teacher responds, the warmth sizzling in the air. “Your mother says hello.”

“When did you see my mother?”

“Yesterday, I helped her grocery shop. She called me the son she wished she had.”

The Officer flaps his hands, with a noise that sounds stuck between offended and flabbergasted. Dee feels a bit of the ice cream drip down his palm.

There’s a bizarre feeling in the air, a tension? No that wasn’t right. Dee can’t place the reason for the electricity in the air that the teacher had brought, buzzing and sparking between the three of them. Mr. Hart doesn’t seem to have a bad thing to say which meant that Resource Officer Roman had every right to hate the man at the other end of the table (since he was obviously hitting on Mr. Hart, ugh). But somehow the words and the tone don’t match at all. There’s no jealousy, no thinly vailed hatred that Dee was so adept at noticing.

(If he’s honest, he thinks the Resource Officer is eye fucking the substitute Teacher right there in front of him and that even more terrifying than the alternative.)

“I see you have both entertained Mr. Ekans, here.” The teacher says turning to Dee with a sharp piercing gaze. Dee stomach drops out.

Here it is. End times. Dee finds himself sinking backwards like he can hide in from the words that are coming. The burns on his shoulders sting with a phantom pain that’s all too familiar, and not at all real. He stares at the half melted ice cream mess in his hand because it’s easier than meeting the accusatory look of his teacher who was going to hold him accountable for injuring the “perfect” student.

“Don’t you have a class to teach, Calculator Watch?” Resource Officer Roman says, “Unless you murdered them all already. Bored them to death at fourteen! Tragic!”

“Your snide comments have no equal, Prince.” The Teacher shoots back, “They are sixteen and seventeen, and I left them for a mere moment to talk to Mr. Ekans. They believe I am picking up more worksheets for them to do in the coming weeks.”

No one says anything for a second, and Dee feels it in his bones the way the attention shifts. All three adults are looking at him, and he feels the need to defend himself in any way that’s possible. What could he say? That Kyle was a douche? A bully? Like any of them would believe that. Dee was the one who had threatened and then assaulted the other. Not to mention he _looked_ like the bad guy in everyone’s stories. Short of the fangs, he was the monster that hid under kids’ beds.

(And he wasn’t thinking that just because once he had seen several of his brother’s friends run off screaming as he approached him in the pick up area of the elementary school, because he couldn’t blame a couple eight-year-olds for being scared.)

Dee’s mouth is halfway open with some half baked, insincere apology he doesn’t mean and hates to say when Dr. Ackroyd speaks.

“I came to ask how your hand was fairing.”

Mr. Hart’s head tilts to the side. Dee glares at the other side of the room and wishes he had slid into the restroom when he had the chance to. Cowardly? Maybe. But he’s never met anyone who liked facing consequences either.

“Kiddo?” Mr. Hart says. “What happened?” He sits back down, causing the table to shake and Dee to squeeze the rest of the ice cream from between the chocolate breading and onto the table.

“There was an altercation in my class,” Dr. Ackroyd says. “Mr. Ekans ended up punching another student.”

“Oh dear!” Mr. Hart cries, and Dee for the life of him can’t figure out why he suddenly grabs the rag at his elbows and gently cups the ice cream mess that is his out-reached hand. It’s the wrong hand, but Dee’s brain short circuits in the second their hands touch. (He’s not sure why that happened either and refuses to give a second to think about it.) Why was Mr. Hart trying to help him? Didn’t he see that Dee was the villain making threats and acting on them?

“I didn’t even notice! Are you alright? Do you need ice? A bandaid?”

“Am I gonna have to write a report for this one?” Resource Officer Roman groans, “Why are you trying to give me extra homework again, Logan? We graduated years ago!”

“If I remember correctly, you got off a minute and a half ago, Roman,” the Teacher says, placing himself in the seat directly across from Dee, “So therefore, no, you will not have to write an incident report for this event. Additionally, those extra homeworks were the reason you graduated at all.”

Dee glances at the clock in the corner, surprised to see there’s still twenty minutes of class left. Did the Resource Officer really get off early? Dee had never heard of that, but then again, he had never cared before either.

“It’s the other hand, Patton.” The teacher continues.

Dee gets the feeling he’s being analyzed. Mr. Hart coaxes Dee’s other arm from his pocket, and it stings where the lip of his jean pocket rips over his knuckles. He has to turn so that Mr. Hart can look at his fingers and the black nail polish on his nails where his mother hadn’t been able to scrub it off. But it’s turning away from Dr. Ackroyd and his calculated stare and for that Dee is grateful. He hides in his shoulder.

“Mr. Ekans,” The teacher says, “Might I inquire what possessed you to acquaint Mr. Phillips with your fist in the middle of my class?”

The word “no” is at the top of Dee’s tongue, clicking against his front teeth valiantly, although the silence is preferable. Somehow, he doesn’t think he could win a game of silence against the gaze of the teacher. Somehow the silence seems much more dangerous than speaking the truth.

But before it gets out, the Resource officer is suddenly right next to them, “Did you just say he punched Phillips? Like Kyle Phillips?”

Dee doesn’t have time to even panic.

The man is already turning to him a grin lighting up three-fourths of his face. “It’s Official, Dante Ekans! You’re my new favorite student!”

“Roman!” Mr. Hart says, “You can’t pick favorites! Kyle is--”

The Officer leans back with a scoff, “I’ll stop you there, my beloved baker! I had to hold you back from physically fighting his mom at the last PTA meeting!”

 “Yeah but—”

“You wanted to burn their house down!”

Mr. Hart sticks his tongue in his cheek and bites it. “Their entire family is just so awful to _everyone_.”

Dee imagines what it would be like if Mr. Hart had burned down their house, if Kyle had lost his dad, if Kyle had been just as disfigured at Dee was. He hates it, he hates the smug feeling in his stomach, because he knew better than anyone how much life sucked and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. _Shouldn’t_ wish it on anyone.

Dee hisses where Mr. Hart’s rag rubs over his knuckles. The scraps were red, but at least it didn’t look like they were bleeding. He must have ripped the first couple layers of skin off, but that’s all.

Dee stares off in a direction where no one else was. It was easier than looking at the adults. The words caught in his throat, warbled and stuttered and barely more than a mumble.

“He started it.”

Did he sound like a five year old? Yes. Most definitely. Absolutely.

“I see,” the teacher says. He folds his hands deliberately in front of himself, in a fluid motion that Dee watches like a hawk without turning his head back. The tone gives him pause, because Dee can’t find any amusement in it, any hint that this new teacher is just humoring him because he wants a laugh or why-ever any of the teachers that ever listen to him do.

“I assumed as much from his attitude during my class. I’ve already set aside time to speak to him and his mother about his inexcusable behavior.”

Dee freezes as the teacher goes on to talk about proper class etiquette. He doesn’t hear a word after “inexcusable”. It makes his chest hurt, his eyes burn, and his scars itch. Its uncomfortable, its wrong, its _different._ Because no one has ever called Kyle’s behavior bad. The floaty feeling from earlier comes back (without him realizing it had been gone) and Dee is certain that this is somehow a twisted dream.

A twisted dream he wants _so_ bad to be reality. A dream that Dee doesn’t want to wake from.

“—of course. If instances continue at this pace I would be obligated to—”

“You’re serious.”

The words plop out of Dee’s mouth and land on the table between him and the teacher in some type of ugly blob. He hadn’t meant for it to be so weak, so pathetic, but his tone to wobble somewhere between the four syllables just so much that the teacher’s mouth snapped shut and Mr. Hart’s gentle hands paused from examining his knuckles. Dee wants to take it back, wants to yank the words from the air and pretend they were never there.

Dr. Ackroyd adjusts his glasses and their eyes meet for the first time. Dee thinks it’s a lot like staring into the galaxy, into the great expanse, and knowing that it was also staring back at him.

“I’m very serious. I wear a necktie.”

It sounds like a joke when he says it, and maybe there’s a flicker of his lips that tells Dee is alright to laugh at it.

Dee feels like crying instead.

“I think you’ll find I’m not like your other teachers, Mr. Ekans.”

Mr. Hart smiles at that, smiles the whole conversation, smiles like the sun is shining and the birds are singing and global warming isn’t gonna end all life on Earth by the time Dee is thirty. He lets go of Dee’s injured hand and Dee finds he misses the warmth and the gentle touch. “I have some bandages in the back. Ro, can you help me?”

The Resource Officer makes some noise but the nutritionist takes him by the wrist and drags him into the kitchens. Dee thinks the man is too gay to have really protested anyway.

The teacher and him sit silently as the echoes of their voices, of Mr. Hart’s laughter fades until its just them in their own little untouchable bubble.

“Mr. Walker, your previous science teacher, left me several notes about his classes.” Dr. Ackroyd says, “As well as the grades.”

Dee itches the burns on his neck, a little angrily. He doesn’t say anything because there’s nothing to say. It’s midway through the year and there’s very little he can do to bring his grade up as far as it needs to go for science alone. Not to mention English, Mathematics, and History.

“He mentioned that I might find you to be a difficult student, but I disagree with that assessment.” Dr. Ackroyd prompts Dee to look at him again, “I get the impression you are a very bright student, Mr. Ekans, and very few people choose to see that part of you. I’ve met a lot of students in my time teaching in the United States and abroad. Most of them get by with less than a fourth of the effort than you’ve most likely put in. However, I can’t change the grades that your teacher has already declared for you.”

He pauses, “I can however enter a grade that hasn’t been posted yet.”

Dee dares to let his chest fill with that unfamiliar feeling, that whimsy mystical emotion everyone called hope.

“As it happens, you have a 62.45 percentage in this class as of right now. Mr. Walker was notoriously slacking when he entered any of your grades, so many of your grades are resulting zeroes from missing work, including the midterm from last week.”

The midterm that Dee had finished five whole minutes before everyone else and handed into to Mr. Walker directly. The one that he’s sure the teacher had finished grading before the end of school bells had rung.

Dee hangs on the teacher’s words, too desperate for the chance Dr. Ackroyd was offering to be embarrassed about how pathetic he was acting. He was starving and this ridiculous teacher was dropping him breadcrumbs.

“So, if you are open to recreating the work that has gone missing and putting time aside to retake a midterm I will provide, I would be more than happy to enter in the missing grades.”

“You’d…you’d do that?”

Dr. Ackroyd seems surprise that Dee would even have to ask.

“Of course. I see no reason to withhold grades as long as you put in the effort, Mr. Ekans.”

Dee doesn’t care if it’s a dream. If its fake. His knuckles hurt, his chest constricts, he’s not sure he can make words even if his life depended on it. A lump forms in his throat, thick and heavy and dangerous. Because that’s all he’s wanted, all he’s needed since he was six: just someone to treat him like everyone else.

Not Lucky. Not pitiful. Just Dee, by himself, putting in the effort for the education he needed.

“Just please, if you could refrain from making anymore, ah, _serious_ threats against the rest of the student populace.”

And that’s all it takes for him to break.

Mr. Hart comes back hand in hand with Resource Officer Roman and they find Dee attempting to forcibly remove an onslaught of tears from his face before the bell rings to release the students, and Dr. Ackroyd appearing as incredibly uncomfortable as possible as a slew of confused apologies tumble from his mouth.

And all either of them do is smile.

Dante Ethan Ekans hates every single teacher in his high school.

(Except one. And a Resource Officer. And a Nutritionist.)


End file.
